Staying focused for God is a serious thing and one that needs to be worked at. Someone years ago mentioned a phrase which went something like “prayer that works is to work at prayer”. I completely understand what they meant by that and it certainly is true that prayer needs to be worked at, even if it is building up the internal discipline in order to make time to have a quality moment with our Father.

I have spent the last few days instilling a strategy in how to keep on praying for this nation. I have to smile every time I think how strongly I now feel about England as a nation and how great a nation we were once considered. As a teenager I was quite rebellious politically and would speak against this nation and have nothing but contempt whenever I discussed politics with people I would meet. My friends became most embarrassed every time someone made a comment in support of political leaders which would always light the touch paper of belligerence within me.

Well my heart has changed and my love and compassion for this country, England, has come to fill me with purpose. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are a nation that is as great as at a time in the earlier part of the last century. I hope to un-pack some of what my heart is still contemplating over the next few weeks but I think we as a nation do have to find a way to repent of how we have treated Israel. This country has broken promises, promises that were made in the interim period of World Wars 1 and 2. The League of Nations were created to protect and help vulnerable countries and the eradication of the British Empire I believe is in part responsible for our indecision and broken promises in support of Israel. I am reading the biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, not an easy read I have to confess but incredibly interesting, which has outlined a lot of what happened in those years of the creation of what is now the United Nations. Israel has been unjustifiably vilified for no other reason than to defend it self.

I know what I have just said and I take full responsibility for my views but I feel this is as good a place to start the year in supporting prayer for a nation that whoever should bless her shall in turn have an abundance of blessing upon themselves.

I pray that decisions that have been taken out of ignorance can be corrected by our countries leaders. I hope this year with the Olympics just 7 months away will be a physical manifestation of how a spiritual nation we once were and will be again when relationships are repaired and mistakes from the past are corrected. I earnestly request for our nation to own our past and repent.